Motorola ‘eager’ to get into tablet market, but won’t do so until next year

Motorola’s been thinking about tablets for a while now, but according to Sanjay Jha, it won’t be entering that flourishing new market segment until it’s absolutely certain it’ll have a product that’s “competitive in the marketplace.” Depending on how you perceive the Droid X, Moto might arguably be said to already have a tablet out on sale, but rumors have mostly circulated around a 10-inch slate device, most probably in partnership with Verizon and most likely using Android 3.0 as its OS. Google itself has admitted that Android won’t be fit for tablets until Gingerbread is delivered, and Jha’s reluctance to introduce any new hardware before 2011 seems to be motivated by a corresponding desire to have the latest and greatest version on board from the start. Can’t say we blame him.

Motorola ‘eager’ to get into tablet market, but won’t do so until next year originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 17 Sep 2010 06:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola Defy hitting T-Mobile this holiday season, details to come… on Oprah

Remember that Defy that Motorola outed at the front end of this month? Turns out the Europeans won’t be the only ones seeing it this Christmas, as Moto has just revealed that it’ll be hitting US airwaves exclusively on T-Mobile “in time for the holidays.” You already know the details — a 3.7-inch WVGA scratch-resistant touchpanel, plenty of rigidity, Android 2.1, the ability to withstand dust and water, a five megapixel camera (with flash and auto focus), DLNA support and the outfit’s own Blur interface (despite Jha’s claims that it would fade from view) — but it looks as if you’ll have to wait a tick to find out anything about pricing. How long? Tune into today’s farewell season premiere of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” to find out. Yeah… strange. But true!

Continue reading Motorola Defy hitting T-Mobile this holiday season, details to come… on Oprah

Motorola Defy hitting T-Mobile this holiday season, details to come… on Oprah originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Sep 2010 12:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola Defy: Android 2.1 goes rugged with water, dust and scratch resistance

Remeber the Motorola i1? Moto has just added its second rugged(ish) Android handset in the 3.7-inch Gorilla Glass-fronted Defy. It’s dust-, scratch-, impact-, and water-resistant. Matching up to the IP67 durability spec means it’s expected to resist being submersed in up to a meter of water for up to half an hour — making it a pretty awesome option for taking your Android to the beach, 854 x 480 is your screen resolution, backed up by an OMAP 3610 chip running at 800MHz (there had to be some tradeoffs, right?). Android 2.1 is another slight disappointment, we’re not clear on why Froyo had to be left off the table, but at least Motorola has bundled Swype as the default input mechanism. Should be a boon for some, we suppose. The Defy is expected to launch across Europe in Q4 2010.

Update: Hands-on video now available after the break.

Continue reading Motorola Defy: Android 2.1 goes rugged with water, dust and scratch resistance

Motorola Defy: Android 2.1 goes rugged with water, dust and scratch resistance originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 04:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola Milestone 2 makes official, albeit unintentional, debut (video)

Sometimes it takes a crafty, steel-nerved individual to leak an unreleased phone’s details ahead of time. And then sometimes all it takes is a negligently uploaded video. An official promo for the Milestone 2 has popped up on YouTube before quickly being yanked by Moto. The Droid 2‘s international sibling unsurprisingly looks to be its carbon copy by another name: it features a 1GHz OMAP SOC, 512MB of RAM, a 5 megapixel imager, and Android 2.2 as the OS (complete with Flash Player and Froyo’s native hotspot ability). We’ll go out on a limb here and guess that this means the rest of the world will be getting its dose of Moto’s latest and greatest QWERTY slider in very short order.

[Thanks, Thomas]

Update: Oh hello! Someone managed to rip the video before Motorola’s retraction, so we’ve naturally got it embedded for you just past the break. And yes, whether you like it or not, Motoblur lives on. Thanks, qakgob!

Continue reading Motorola Milestone 2 makes official, albeit unintentional, debut (video)

Motorola Milestone 2 makes official, albeit unintentional, debut (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 31 Aug 2010 15:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Custom Droid X ROMs starting to break loose, eFuse be damned

Despite Motorola’s best intentions to the contrary, the Droid X has been making steady progress toward viable custom ROMs, first with root access, then with a recovery method… and now, at long last, we’re starting to get the first few glimpses at legit cooked firmware. The two options we’re seeing so far are Sapphire — originally designed for the Droid of old — and a so-called “FlyX” ROM from longtime contributor Birdman. In both cases, the benefits of eschewing Motorola’s standard builds are pretty obvious: you get Froyo, root, and a host of apps and capabilities preferred by the superuser crowd like surcharge-free mobile hotspot access. The process is a little involved to get these bad boys installed at this point, but with time, we’re willing to bet it becomes a pretty painless endeavor. Follow the break for a quick video of Sapphire booting into stock Froyo on the X — a tantalizing sight, indeed.

[Thanks, Clift]

Continue reading Custom Droid X ROMs starting to break loose, eFuse be damned

Custom Droid X ROMs starting to break loose, eFuse be damned originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Aug 2010 16:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Droid Pro is the global Droid 2: the evidence grows

We’d reported before our belief that the rumored Droid Pro is nothing more than the dual-mode version of the Droid 2, but the question remained: knowing that the Droid 2 has a model code of A955, what the heck is the difference between the model codes A956 and A957 that have been showing up in Verizon’s systems? Looks like we might have some clarification on that question this afternoon thanks to a new shot clearly calling out the A957 as the R2-D2 version of the Droid 2 that’s launching late next month. What does that mean? Well, it means that if the Droid Pro is a separate product with insane specs, it hasn’t shown up in any screen shots and we don’t have a model code for it. Our original tipster was pretty insistent that Verizon didn’t have any product on its 2010 phone roadmap with crazier specs than the Droid X — and besting it inside of six months would seem like an awful business move anyway — so now, the only question seems to be whether Big Red will go with the “Droid 2 World Edition” or “Droid Pro” branding when this thing launches in the coming weeks.

[Thanks, anonymous tipster]

Droid Pro is the global Droid 2: the evidence grows originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Aug 2010 16:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Verizon pushing Droid update for Flash 10.1 compatibility

You might recall that Verizon and Motorola’s first go-around at pushing Android 2.2 to the original Droid didn’t include compatibility with the Flash 10.1 install in the Market — but don’t worry, lovers of Flash-based web ads, because the fix is now upon us. We don’t know exactly how long the rollout process is going to take, but you know how it goes with Android OTA updates: even if they try to stretch it over several weeks, there’s usually an update.zip floating around within a few hours that you can grab if you want to accelerate the process just a bit. Here’s the full statement from Verizon:

“Verizon Wireless has begun pushing an update today to the DROID by Motorola (introduced November 2009) that will allow customers to download Adobe Flash 10.1 via Android Market. Flash Player 10.1 provides access to millions of sites with rich content including animations, casual games, videos, rich internet applications, audio and much more.”

Verizon pushing Droid update for Flash 10.1 compatibility originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Aug 2010 12:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Exclusive: Motorola MB520 Kobe / Diablo for AT&T in the wild

Remember that midrange, Android-equipped MB520 Kobe from Moto we told you about a few days back? Well, it’s stepping out for the first time this evening with a little help of our dear brother from another mother, Mr. Blurrycam. As we’d heard before it’s definitely destined for AT&T bearing Android 2.1 with Blur (complete with Blur logo on back), though our tipster tells us we can expect an update to 2.2 over the air. Along with “Kobe,” the codename “Diablo” is apparently being tossed around internally, though decisions have been made on what to call it when it hits shelves. A Droid X competitor it’s not — but coming off the Backflip debacle, it’s baby steps for Moto’s Android relationship with AT&T, right? Hit the break for more shots.

[Thanks, Napoleon]

Exclusive: Motorola MB520 Kobe / Diablo for AT&T in the wild originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 25 Aug 2010 20:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Droid 2 root method finds its way online

The very first line of the forum post on xda-developers says it best — proceed at your own risk — but if you’ve been kept up at night waiting for root to be gained on Verizon’s recently-released Droid 2, it looks like your day has come. The process involves tethering up to your PC and transferring a couple binaries, but seems straightforward enough and should open the door to surcharge-free tethering and other apps that require root access. We’ve no doubt Motorola will be looking to patch this up with the next OTA push, of course, so update carefully from here on out.

[Thanks, Jonathan]

Droid 2 root method finds its way online originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 25 Aug 2010 17:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Droid X upgrade to Android 2.2 leaks out

What we’re looking at here is allegedly the leaked over-the-air update to Froyo that Verizon plans on deploying to Droid X customers in the next few weeks, which means two critical things for customers: it should generally be faster all the way around, and — of course — you’ve got support for Flash, which was a big topic of interest at Motorola’s launch event for the phone a couple months back. The update is available both in rooted and non-rooted versions, so if you’re feeling adventurous today and you enjoy the thrill of doing something that offers a remote possibility of bricking your phone, you may want to go ahead and grab it. Good luck, and let us know your experiences in comments, alright?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Droid X upgrade to Android 2.2 leaks out originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Aug 2010 11:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceMy Droid World  | Email this | Comments